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Key of Flight

By Amy Sakovich

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There was no puzzle to finding your way through the labyrinth.  It’s a great clockwork set in motion to keep leading you back to the middle.  The only way out was a key Pasiphae kept so she could walk right in as she pleased.  Why would she want to go into the labyrinth? Because she loved that ugly half-breed child of hers of course.  As much as I loved my beautiful one.

Daedalus never told Ariadne how to find the key. I did.  If I knew what it would cost him, what it would cost us, I never would’ve given her a thing.

As I was leaving Pasiphae’s chamber to freshen the wine one day, Ariadne slipped from the shadows and stepped in line with me.  We walked in silence, pretending it was natural, the young mistress and I on a stroll to the kitchens together.

She seemed composed, but underneath was agitation.  Her eyes were much too bright, her limbs fitful and uneasy in their movements.  Something was bothering the girl. She would speak of it eventually.

We came to the stairs leading down to the kitchens—sure to be packed with curious servants—when she finally stopped me.

“Wait.”

I obeyed.  I didn’t speak or glance up.  A gaze can be damning.

“Can we walk a little further?”

“I have work to do, mistress.  What do you need of me?”

“I know.  I’m sorry.”  She sighed and fidgeted some more, her timidity pushing the boundaries of my patience.  “I need your help.”

“What you demand I must do.”

“I’m not demanding, I’m asking.  I need your willing assistance.”

“Wait for me here.  I’ll collect the wine and return.”

I took my time in the kitchens.  I tried not to wonder what she could possibly need that would require my will, something her mother says doesn’t even exist.

There were several village girls hired to handle the heavier-than-usual workload.  Guests traveled from across the region to celebrate Crete’s power over Athens. The rooms steamed in the afternoon light, a chorus of iron and knives rang off the walls like a blacksmith’s forge.  The sacrifices would be tomorrow, and the celebratory dinners would carry on for days. Blood makes the rich hungry.

I realized Ariadne’s trouble must be serious.  She’s mistress of the labyrinth, in charge of caring for the “beast” and overseeing the stock brought in to feed that poor boy, driven mad by their deprivations.

She knew he’s her half-brother.  Not born of a bull, but of a man from the southern lands, skin dark as the ocean at night, with broad, flat features of those lands.  I don’t know him, but I’ve known others. Good men, often times, but harder to accept a bastard from than a bull I suppose.

She played childishly at being a mother. They sent her game to release within the Labyrinth; he’s always expected to chase down his food.  

Several years ago, with a basket filled with fruit, a bottle of wine and a shirt she’d stitched herself, the girl wandered into the clockworks to find the boy. I was with her mother when word came. Her shrieks could be heard throughout the grounds, calling for Daedalus to save her daughter. I wondered why she didn’t take the key and find her child herself.  The beast knows his mother, not the man who trapped him. She demanded there be only one key, so Daedalus must stop the clock if he’s to go in, running risk of releasing the monster. I then realized she loved the boy more than the girl.

After that, Ariadne tied fresh shirts or a kerchief wrapped over fruit to the sheep she sent in. She never looked them in the eye.

Now they’ve created this spectacle of human sacrifices. A fortnight ago they sent her away and set guards at the gates.

When I returned, she worried the cloth of her skirts between her fingers. Why is she so distraught? Is it that they’ve starved him? Or for how he will soon eat?

“I need you to do me a favor.” She said in a rush of words.

I raised one sleek eyebrow and she looked down, chastened.

“Would you consider if I told you I’m going against mother’s wishes?”

“I’m your mother’s slave.”

“Neither of us is fooling the other.”

I let a tiny smile slip. She earned it.

“What do you want?”

“I need the key.”

“It would cost my life to take such a thing.”

“You’ve been in trouble before. That’s why I chose you, you’re strong.”

“And why would I take such a risk for you?”

From the folds of of her skirts she drew a clockwork carriage that would drive itself when wound with a key and placed it in my hand. It was painted red with gilt trim, worn with much tender handling. It belonged to him, my golden boy, Icarus,

I’m sorry. I need a moment. Please.

*

“If you bring a note I’ll take it to him.”

“Daedalus would never—”

“A gift then. He needn’t know from whom.”

I ran my fingers along the golden rim of a wheel. What a fine toy for a child to have.

“I’ll set him free. I will.”

A gaze can be dangerous.  I caught her with such a one, seeking her soul through pale windows.

“At the darkest hour, just before the sun chases off the night, meet me in the orchard under the pomegranate tree.”

She nodded grimly, then turned and slipped away.

The key wasn’t made to go into a keyhole and turn a lock. It was meant to repel the force that swings the labyrinth around you, and it was meant for a queen. It was wrought into a fine gold bracelet etched with the image of a bull, a maze, and our fine lady. She kept it in a bag of silk, hidden from her husband in a false compartment beneath her other jewels. The only threat taking it would be in act, or if she chose to use it, which would be impossible until the festivities were over.

There’s a time in midst of a feast when the fowl have been eaten, the first cask of wine drunk, the beast hauled to the table, when not a soul in the house could be expected outside the dining hall. It was then I intended to achieve my aim. I might be expected in the hall, but my mistress pays little heed to me when in her cups, preferring the well-oiled men carrying trays laden in meat.

And I did slip out unseen, attain the item unthwarted. I planned to return to my post, until I saw another figure ghosting through the halls.  

I knew those blue robes fluttering around the corner better than most, having a hand in the making, and I feared capture through another’s cunning more than random chance. I followed a fair pace behind to see where Ariadne was going.

She led me on a convoluted path through halls and shadowed rooms and finally through the cold storage where the milk comes from the dairy. More than once I feared discovery as she paused and glanced over her shoulder, a dismissive look upon her face, but she continued as if unaware.  

Inside that blasted room chilled with the cold river water and Daedalus pipes I shivered and searched and saw no more sign of her. I first thought she had seen me and chose this damnable place to hide and test my intentions. I searched through the clay jugs of cream and milk, the molds of butter and cloth-wrapped cheeses as if I couldn’t find what I was looking for until I heard the shuffle and mutter of cows disturbed in their beds as I reached the door to the dairy.  

Of course. Here she could slip out of the house without questions from the guards. Too early for our rendezvous, where could she be going? I had my suspicions, and they might tell me more about her request.

No guards stood at the entrance to the labyrinth, a great beamed door set deep into the western wall where sun never reached; a person wishing to enter was welcome to their fate.  The inside of the heavy oak door bore no handle, no way to rise to the earth again, only down into the depths and certain death. Now it was ajar, a block of wood used to chock wagon wheels wedged against the jamb.  

I savored the temptation to kick it free and leave the child to a fate her mother deserves. It was a healthy temptation, fueled by hatred of bearing chains, of losing my only family, my right to my own fate. Before I gave in, voices traveled through the opening and snuffed my rage.

“I’ll bring a sword and lead you out again. That’s the best I can do.”

“Why not a key? Can I lay a trail of bread crumbs or a thread along my path?”

“Dear Theseus, if only it was as simple as that. No, there is no trail that will set you free. I can pass through the walls because it’s my role here, to care for the labyrinth and mind the beast. And I would do so for you, my lord, my love, if you just promise to take me with you.”

“And I love you too, my pretty Ariadne. But the journey to Athens is a dangerous one.”

“You’ll be there to protect me. Without you, my desolation would be impossible to hide. A daughter with a broken heart would be a great affront to a king with no other heirs.”

“You would make a fine queen.”

“So you’ll do it? You’ll take me on your ship?”

“I will, my love. Gladly. Tell me, when will you bring the sword?”

“Shortly after the prisoners are released in the labyrinth. Work your way in one hundred steps, then wait. I’ll find you and we’ll face him together.”

“The violence won’t be too much for your innocent eyes?”

“I’ve watched over him seven years. This will be an end to a nightmare, not the beginning.”

“Tomorrow then.”

*

I reached the orchard first, climbed into the crook of an apple tree and watched the moon limn the pomegranate leaves. She arrived with no sneaking gait or nervous glances, just a peaceful princess contemplating the moon amongst the trees.  

I was uncertain whether I could trust a daughter of her mother with so much weakness. The Ariadne I’ve watched grow up matched the beaming girl making love to a prisoner hours before. However, as often as she had soft eyes and a demure countenance, she could weave a maze as dangerous as the labyrinth with her words. There’s a sharp edge to her wit she keeps sheathed. Who was she drawing that edge for?

I would have to approach her directly. I jumped to the ground with a soft thud. She paused before she turned, masking her surprise.

“Have you been watching me?” she asked, “Or are you hiding because you’ve failed.”

“You had no doubt in me before, mistress, when making plans with your lover.”

“So you know?”

“I do.”

“It was a risk I had to take, involving you. One, I trust, worthy of my bet.”

“Do you mean to do it?”

“Do what?”

“Help this man kill your brother, if you need it spelled out.”  

“I do.”

“Why? Why not use the key to set him free, instead of doting on some braggart sailor.”

“Prince Theseus, in fact. His father is king of Athens. But that’s not what you want to know. You want to know why I would kill Asterion rather than set him free. I’m surprised that I need to explain it to you. You must realize he would never be free. Even if I could get him out and get away from Crete. Look what his own parents made of him, a boy that loves figs and fairy tales. What do you think would happen out there?

“He used to tame them, you know. The beasts they sent for him to hunt. He’d feed them the bits of fruit and bread I snuck in the sheep’s wool. He soon realized they couldn’t both live on those few bits of food, and it was no favor letting them starve. He cried for ten days straight. Nearly died of starvation himself. That’s when I started crawling into the clockworks and found the pipes dripping water in. I told him story after story until he finally calmed. What would the world do with a boy like him with a heart like that?”

“Has he not learned his lesson? Doesn’t he show mercy by killing the beasts sent to him?”

“A lesson how likely to serve when the prey is a man like Theseus?”

The scuffle of a fox through the leaves, the buzz of cicadas on the air, there was nothing else but us and the moon and the pomegranate tree.  

“You promised to free Icarus.”

“You will. There’ll be a chest outside Mother’s room tomorrow morning. Here, a key for a key,” an iron key stretched across her palm. I slipped it in my pocket and withdrew the silken pouch.

“Take this too,” I said, handing her the pouch and a dove carved of applewood. The wings were jointed and flapped. A simple thing compared to his father’s craft, but I hoped he would be pleased just the same.

She examined the little bird.

“Yours? It shows a careful hand, much like your stitches.”

“Yes. Not genius as his father’s things.”

“A boy needs more than machines.”

I felt how close we were in the longings of our hearts, in the sharpness of our edges, there for our own defense.

“You believed me then?” she asked

“With the man? Yes, I did.”

“Good, then he will too.”

“You’re really trusting yourself to him?”

“I’ll find an escape. He’s too reluctant to take me with him. He’s a braggart, too, like you said. He brags how he’ll trick his father into death so he’ll inherit on his return. Something about the sails on his ship.”

“May your freedom be kinder than Asterion’s. You deserve such.”

“I’ll never be free of tomorrow.”

And that is how she did it.

*

Panic followed Theseus’s and Ariadne’s escape, as expected. The chest wasn’t a large one, easy enough for me to span the length but too heavy to carry, so I dragged it into the room where my pallet lay outside Pasiphae’s chamber. I threw a few old robes for sewing over the top and it sat there untouched and unnoticed for days.

I would’ve opened it right away if I could, to see what the chest held that would free my boy. But things changed so much for the worst, it was days before I could.

Daedalus was called to my master’s throne room. In my foolishness I never drew the simple conclusion a breach to the labyrinth would lay on him. I assumed they would blame Ariadne and simply disown her or hide from embarrassment. Ridiculous. What master won’t blame a servant when he can to save face?  

Pasiphae worked me hard that morning, insisting on a bath drawn, her jewels polished, her mattress beaten and aired, any thing to keep me distracted. I’m not sure why, she enjoys the look of suffering. Her plan failed. Ariadne’s maid, Deidre, caught me carrying fresh boiled water from the kitchen to the copper tub. The girl bid me set down my burden before she spoke. I did.

“It’s Daedalus,” she said, “And his son. They’ve been sent to the tower.”

She was right. If I still carried the jug of water I would’ve poured it over my head like fresh river water, praying it wash away my sins. I bent over, my arms clenched to my stomach as if the pain would tear me apart.

“Here—”  The girl opened a door behind us, led me in. A drying room with racks of linens sweating in the heat. It felt like hell.

“You must recover quickly, or she’ll suspect you too. You can’t help them from the tower.”

I searched her face, trying to understand how much she knew. She had a placid mask, much like one I saw many times before on another formidable girl. Were they fond of each other? Did they have a chance to say goodbye?

Her words brought to mind the chest. I held it in the blackness of my thoughts as a beacon to lead my journey. I had to help them.

When I returned, Pasiphae watched me closely. I wore my own mask, more stern than those of Ariadne and her maid. I kept my beacon clear in my mind and held my body to the lady’s bidding until she grew bored and sent me away. Then I took the chance to open the chest.

Inside were pieces of clockwork, fine waxed cloth, iron struts and wooden shafts. I nearly slammed the lid back down. What was I to do with these?

If I’d looked before, I would’ve been certain that the girl was no better than her mother. But the kindness her servant showed me told of something else. If not a jest, what was it?

There were many long days of work where I dwelled both on the contents of the box and on the fate of the men I loved.  

Daedalus and I were in love. It wasn’t a game, or a passing passion. We spent many hours together in his workshop, before Pasiphae knew. We were both petted, coveted, used by our masters. I’d been a pretty, precocious child, taught to read and figure, dressed in pretty frocks to carry the lady’s train, until I grew into a young woman and men’s eyes gleamed like a wolf spotting a hare.  

Then Pasiphae raged at nothing, dressed me in plainest sackcloth and left me stitching in a dark corner. She forbade me to read or write. My only respite was the orchards or carrying messages to the surrounding laborers’ huts. I think she hoped some grim brute would rape me.

Instead, I found Daedalus. He delighted in my knowledge, would have me transcribe notes for him. He said I had great insights and would cheer at some phrase I offered, squeezing my shoulders and kissing my brow. The next time I came he would take my hand and draw my towards some new machine humming and ticking in the center of the room.

“We did this,” he would say.  

Those notes were written in small bound books and kept dearly in secret drawers or hidden compartments of the furnishings in his rooms. He mourned the inventions twisted to dastardly use by Minos, but it was the thoughts behind them that were his real treasures.

I searched the chest carefully and found, inside the crown of the lid, a hidden space and a little brown book.

The parts were for a set of wings. No, they made two sets of wings. I wondered if he knew this would come, or if he dreamed of escape. Did he plan to tell me first? Leave a note? Or simply fly away with our child? When I got further in the notes I found my answer. There were three sets of calculations.

I had to work in the hours before dawn, when Pasiphae finally slept and before the other servants woke. When the first set was finished, it became clear I could not hide them amongst my things. Too big for the chest and too clearly what they were, questions would be impossible to answer.

Deidre joined Pasiphae’s chamber. I trusted her in the way her young mistress had earned. I was with her when Pasiphae told what had come of her daughter. She’d abandoned on an island by the young prince, eventually to be married to Dionysus. A god for her outcast daughter.

Deidre flashed the slightest of smiles. It was soon gone; we both held a mask of shock when Pasiphae surveyed her results. Later Deidre told me Ariadne started this rumor herself, to let the girl know she was in charge of her fate.    

“She said if I heard of her safety, to give you this,” and she slipped a key in my palm, hung on a ribbon the same blue as Ariadne’s gown.

Keys, they were everywhere, to unlock chests, to open doors, to clear the way to freedom. A key, at that time, was a miracle to me. A tiny twist of metal, ornate or plain or hidden in a cuff, but always cleared a path. It meant freedom from chains and oppression, a benevolent gift to rise one up and overcome. It was much later I realized the key is indiscriminate, one can open the gates of hell as easily as heaven.    

Ariadne’s room was kept a shrine since the day after she left, when it was searched capstone to core for any clues of where she’d gone. Her things were neatly arranged as if no sacrilege occurred, either in the search or the girl’s leaving. The key led there, the one place I could go unseen. Servants would avoid it for fear of ghosts or gods and the king and queen from injured pride. There I finished the second set of wings. I tried them on myself, the set for Daedalus, those for my son still too small.  

I strapped the harness to my chest as snug as it would go, and beat my arms, feeling the air push me to the earth, a stark reminder I’m not meant to fly.  The click of gears tick, tick, ticked behind me, the device winding up it’s power. When I relaxed my aching shoulders, the gears unwound, the wings took on the circuit, and the air instead pressed up against the bottom of the wings. My feet rose, the stone floor just brushing the bottoms of my toes.  

I hovered in the stillness, then turned the angle of my arms, leant my head towards the bed and floated toward it, above it. The springs unwound and dropped me in a pile on the feather mattress. I buried my face in the soft downy embrace and then I laughed and laughed and laughed, letting the feathers absorb my joy.

The spring unwound much too quickly. Stronger than me, Daedalus was better able to load the clockworks, but such an abrupt end could send him in a deathly plummet. I set to work correcting it, adjusting the gears and testing again, until the descent became more gentle. As the castle woke, I rushed back to my own rooms, mind filled with the wonder of discovery.

Too easily distracted from my work, euphoric with success and lack of sleep, I wonder to this day if my incautious pleasure led to the king’s decision. That very day, as I went about my tasks, Pasiphae delivered her greatest blow.

“Clearly Daedalus’s machinations are’t trustworthy. We’ve treated him well for many years, and see how he repays us. We’ll repay him in kind. The tower will be sealed with him and the child in it. Let’s see how he’ll get himself out of this one. Not easily, I surmise, without his patron’s wealth to buy him toys.” She looked right at me.

I breathed calm, willed my body languid. She smiled and I soon realized my mistake. Ordinarily this method raised no alarm, but in my blissful ignorance I had let my step become light and quick this morning. The joy gave away my misery.

She watched me for hours, enjoying the game, like a cat setting free his wounded prey to watch it struggle. Near nightfall before I wound my way toward the tower. I knew it would be too late.

The masons packed up their things as if leaving an honest day’s work, talking of hearty meals expected at home.  Moisture creeping across the edges of stone from the drying mortar. By tomorrow no one could tell a stairwell laid behind, and that a man and a boy waited above cut off from the world.

I clung to my plan as my last bit of sanity. They weren’t closed off from the world because I held a key to a different path.

I fled to Ariadne’s room but froze at the sight of another in front of the chamber door. It was Deidre. She nodded, and opened the door. I followed her inside. She bundled the wings and harness, handing one to me, and carrying the other.

“This way,” she said, and led me into an adjoining chamber.  

From there she led me in a backward path that exited at the edge of the orchard, under a gibbous moon.  

“There,” she pointed to the tower forming the south corner of the wall. “You’ll need to be free from the trees first. Do you think you can make it?”

I nodded, afraid to utter a word, and took her bundle with mine. I turned to the tower, and when I glanced next over my shoulder, she was gone.  

The wings worked as expected. I rose gently on the air, amazed with weightlessness. The window was small, but as the wings carried me near, a pole extended into the night, a strong, gentle arm the only sign of the man holding it. I pulled the string to snap the wings close to my body and grasped for the pole.

The earth jerked at me as soon as the wings shut. He didn’t lose, though, and pulled me steadily through that stone aperture as if hauling an anchor smoothly from the sea. I fell to his feet, dizzy with the weight of stone beneath me.

“I knew you’d come,” he said.  

“Papa, who’s that?” A higher voice from the darkness of the room, as gentle as his.

“A friend, my boy. We’re saved.” The child stepped into the dim moonlight.

I’d not seen Icarus since he toddled at my feet. I’d know those eyes anywhere, the roundness of them, the depth of the amber gaze, the rich curl of lashes. His crown of loose curls was cut close to his head, his nose and jaw a model of his father’s. I wondered if he got his lank tall frame, as well as the rich warm tone of his skin, from me.  

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, and I lowered my eyes with the shame of it.  

Daedalus sorted through the pieces, searching for something.

“They work,” I assured. Did he not snatch me from the air himself?

“Where are the others?” he asked.

“His are there.” I pointed to the bundle I dropped when I collapsed to the floor.

“Where are yours?”

He had not meant to leave me behind.

“That’s all I had to work with,” I explained.

“I’ll carry you down first.”

“They won’t have the power to lift us both.”

“They could slow the descent.”

“The risk is too great.” I couldn’t say more with Icarus watching, the truth dawning on his young face. “Icarus, here let me help you.”

I dressed him in his harness. Fixed his wings to his arms. It’s the only way my failure could’ve escaped me, the enchantment of dressing him as a mother does.  

“You must go,” I said to Daedalus. There was no final embrace, no tears for us.

“I’ll make them. I’ll be back for you. There’s food. And water. In a space I’ve made in the stone.”

Icarus was snug in his harness. I stood, afraid to meet his eyes again, and helped Daedalus with his. The closeness of him was heady.

“Stay with him,” I said as I fastened the final buckle. He put his hands around my arms, held me in front of him. I would’ve given him anything, but in the end he asked nothing.

“Help him. I’ll go first. And I’ll return.”

He fledged from the window and lifted on the wind. Icarus gasped in wonder and joy. I held him back just a little, so they wouldn’t collide.

“Here,” he said handing me the applewood dove, “I’ll fly myself now, you keep him.”

I helped him on the ledge, told him what to do. He flapped his little arms with vigor, and then I released him.

The two of them rose above the horizon, the moon glow shadowing their forms as they crossed over the orchard, then the wall, and drifted over the sea. My own fate meant little to me, watching them both soar to freedom. It didn’t last long. One figure flapped frantically and began to drop. My heart crashed with him and drowned.

In all my hurry, I forgot to adjust the gears on Icarus’s wings. They failed him. I failed him. And that is why I’m still here, the monster in the tower, where I belong.  

Pasiphae has begun a new walking circuit. She passes below the tower each day. She never looks up.

An hour or so after she passes, a falcon flies in my window with his catch.  He leaves it and returns to whence he came. Those bleeding squirrels and fish are all I have now, and the trickle of rainwater stored in Daedalus’s stone basin.  He did his best to make what he could here, building things was his nature. The falcon is from Pasiphae of course. It’s her nature to prolong the kill.

My nature? Once I would’ve thought it was to endure. No, I think the nature of the slave is mine, doomed to help those that harm, and lose those that love.

*

End

*

© 2018 Amy Sakovich. The content of this article, except for quoted or linked source materials, is protected by copyright. Please contact the author for usage.

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